1) question: it has been said people can be banned for using a chess engine to assist them in their games. I agree that they should be banned, but how do the admins actually tell if they are using chess software? I'm just curious.

2) my store since yeserday has been saying "...oops, an error has occured, plese try again in a few minutes." Any specific reason or fix for this?

1. how they detect engines is top secret and too good a clue to reveal as it might make their job more difficult. I suggest you assume they use a ouija board and so, they can see everything (so don't even try to cheat) and you ought to be less likely to be banned for cheating.

2. the store appears to be having difficulties just now, please try again from time to time (perhaps daily), I'm confident it will soon be fixed so please be patient